You would think that seeing the aggregate cable news numbers, plus the fact that Dobbs at 7 p.m. Eastern is one of the only shows CNN has that’s not in fourth place, the strategy would be obvious — go after the competitor with the highest ratings, even if that means prying away a host or two from Fox when their contracts are up, in the same way Fox stole Beck from Headline News. But the corporate and newsroom cultures are so dead-set against anything concocted by Roger Ailes that the odds are about 3-1 that they’ll continue to delude themselves into believing those liberal viewers are out there somewhere and if we can just come up with the right strategy — like maybe signing Rachel Maddow when her contract is up — we can turn CNN around and someday get Fox-like ratings (though to be fair, most of the CNN newsroom types don’t give a damn about the ratings vs. idological purity any more than the MSNBC people do, and would rather their network go to Obama for a government subsidy than to adjust their lineup to the right to attract more watchers).

Could not much of the drop be due to that delta?